


La Dolce Vita

by ArsenicAndOldLace



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anakin dies adiós tragic fellow, Birth, F/M, Gen, Reflection, luke and leia are just born so there's not much action from them, obi-wan takes anakin with him instead of leaving him
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-23
Updated: 2020-04-23
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:34:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23806180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArsenicAndOldLace/pseuds/ArsenicAndOldLace
Summary: As Anakin rattles his way out of this world and Padmé screams and carries two new lives into this one, Obi-Wan reflects.
Relationships: Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker
Kudos: 7





	La Dolce Vita

**Author's Note:**

> Not betaed, barely edited.

I layed him right next to her, though it feels like a sacrilege. Whatever holy thing they had between them twisted and ugly. The fruits of their relationship mixed. Are the fruit of her womb rotten? Has it whatever makes Anakin so beautiful like a berry perfectly ripe quick to rot when left too long? Both of them live yet. Yet. Anakin looks like I mashed him, I spilt him from my basket and stepped on him. His hair is gone. For good I think. I don’t even have a holo of him since his last haircut. 

When he was really young, he had the ridiculous temple haircut all us males with hair get. He was so cute. His face glowed with pride, no self-consciousness. We’d read together, I taught him Basic in the evenings. All the best Temple holobooks. _A Bath for Baby Bantha_ , _Naki Taa Tambio_ _in the Crystal Cavern_ , and _Ashla and Bogan_. As he grew, we stopped reading together. He didn’t need me to read out loud to him anymore. Only on special nights. He taught me Huttese in return during the years we didn’t read. Curses only of course. Followed by a slammed door. Oh, he was always a master of the door slam, with and without the Force. 

Padmé’s water drips onto the floor. Anakin’s flesh is still sizzling; I remember learning that burns, even after they’re no longer by the heat source, keep burning. He's screaming. In the Force. His vocal cords themselves are too badly damaged for him to do anything but moan. He’s on the edge. Two weeks ago I clutched a baby gasping till death grabbed them. 

For unhealthy infants during the war born without medical access and with dead parents sometimes we did comfort care. We would hold them and take their pain and talk to them. We just held them. Their lungs often weren’t ready to breathe air yet. If we were on Coruscant they never would have died. Healers would just apply surfectan into their lungs and their lungs would be ready. But the ones in the war don’t have that. Ones on Tatooine don’t have that. They gasp, over and over and over, growing raspier, rougher, turning gray, purple, blue. Then they can’t. They exhaust themselves. I never, and maybe I should have, I never helped them die. I only held them and took their pain. What should I have done? I can’t kill these babies. I can’t kill Anakin. I can just listen to his lungs fail, a Naboo whale stranded on the Dune Sea. 

How far along is Padmé? She must be at least 34 weeks. Well into viability. Her body shudders, she moans, in an eery concert with her husband. I need to focus. I’m no healer. I am not giving Anakin even comfort care. I leave him with his pain, his groans. No dignity in death. The Council Room smelled awful. Burnt flesh, tiny bodies, the floor wet with piss. The stench of waste. No comfort care. No creche master held them. Betrayed to lie in piss forever. Without a single last delicious buuja berry on their lips. 

His chest heaves. Once. Twice. The Force itself flowing out from him like the tide. How come It abandons Its son? The Dark leaving him behind, his pain and rage have reached their peak, and now there's nothing left for him to live on. I hear him at last give a great howl and go silent. 

O Force! Of course the world is gray! The sun goes out. 

My own sight leaves me, rushing like the tide out out out. Beneath the waves, little lives stir, bound to rocks, weathering every extreme. 

Then the suns’ rise. Two suns. Instead of darkness, a hole, the whole universe is made bright. Padmé’s the earth they orbit. She heaves and pushes, bringing them out. Her screams overtake her husband’s last, then the twin screams of their children, outdoing both of them. As the universe reforms, her hand breaks mine. 

I break. 

“Luke.” A breath. 

Luke, from Loukas, after a city in Naboo, light, white. 

“Leia.” An exhale. 

Leia, from Le’ah, lifegiving bantha in the desert. 

And between us, the rain comes down on the desert again. 

**Author's Note:**

> Read "Early" by Sarah DiGregorio. It's a fascinating look at preterm birth.


End file.
